


Affection

by eyesasblackasthevoid



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Polyamorous Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Polyamory, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 10:25:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8368768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyesasblackasthevoid/pseuds/eyesasblackasthevoid





	

Kasra’s not good with words. 

Never has been and never has he had to be. There are no deep conversations in mercenary work. No confessions or proclamations when you’re shocking someone else’s enemies clear into the next age for coin.

No, conversations in the life of a mercenary are simple. There’s the give and take of instructions, the layout of a plan, but such discussions are constructed of easy words. He’s never had this much trouble building sentences before, not like this. 

He feels things, things too big, too deep for words. They flood his veins leaving little room for blood, and spark at his fingertips as if they were a spell. 

Actions are easier. That buzzing in the nerves of his hands is eased against skin. In those gentle small hours he dares to spell out the words, on her back, or on his arm. And he prays that neither Cadence or Bull ever take notice. It would make it all too real. He likes the casual feel to their dynamic, even if all three of them know it goes much deeper than that. 

Kasra tries to make up for his lack of verbal affection with the physical. He’s gentle with Cadence. A hand resting around her waist while the other lifts her chin up to kiss her. Followed by a short laugh at how she has to stand on her tip-toes to reach his lips. He’ll pick her up and she’ll throw her arms around his neck and tell him something in Elvhen that he doesn’t understand. She’ll withhold the translation and offer another kiss as consolation. 

He’ll ask once more later. Only for her to tell him that some words lose their meaning when translated, the common tongue doesn’t do them justice. She keeps their truth to herself and he doesn’t pry. He has his ways, and she has hers. 

He and Bull are rougher. It’s a wonder they’ve never broken anything with the way Kasra will pull him against him by that harness he always wears. Not much different is the way Bull will grab his wrists, raise them up over his head and against the nearest wall. Back to stone, arms pinned, Kasra melts into the way his lips feel against Bull’s, as well as how right everything is that the kiss itself represents. 

He hears the gossip as he passes Inquisition soldiers and visiting nobles alike, as he’s sure both of his lovers hear as well. Such things along the lines of a hushed “I can’t believe Lady Lavellan is bedding two of those ox-men. What a scandal!” 

He’s heard that and every possible variation of it. These strangers speak as if they’re looking out for her best interest, but if any of them knew her at all, they’d know that she’s content. More than content. They would also know the fact that their opinions mean less than nug shit to her. 

She has lost so much. She’s drowned most of her grief in drink but the rest she locks away in some dark part of herself. He wishes he could offer her more than merely himself. He’d trade the world to bring back the life and family that was so savagely stolen from her. Alas, that among many other things are such that no mortal has the power to give. All of the past fades into the darkness. Though it may remain as memories, never again will it see light. 

Bull has suffered loss as well, though more so of a different kind. Lost is a piece of himself he was born and raised to believe was all of him. He holds a culture that doesn’t belong to him anymore in the back of his mind, occasionally it trickles out in the form of a stray Qunlat phrase. For a moment the reality of it all flashes in his eyes. It’s subtle, the type of thing only noticed if one is watching for it. Then, as quickly as it manifests, it’s gone. 

He takes a gulp from his mug to wash the taste of the past out. And so Kasra will do the same in kind, a silent affirmation that he’s there for him.

Whether that actually works for Bull is a mystery. A lifetime of being trained to hide facial expressions still holds him. He is constantly and subconsciously steeling himself. Some habits are hard to break, and maybe it’s for the best. 

The Qun is a topic Kasra has always been keen to avoid, even before Bull became Tal Vashoth. He never lived it, only heard what his mother and father were willing to tell him. He understands some Qunlat. Such was overheard and eventually picked up from whenever his parents wanted to talk in private—and he wanted to eavesdrop. But almost every word or phrase Bull has used thus far has been completely foreign to him. 

Kadan is the exception. His parents used the same word as an endearment for each other. The warm sincerity of his tone when he says it reminds Kasra of home. He’d always wanted a love like that of his parents, never did he dream of what he had found with Cadence and Bull. After all what were the chances that three souls would fall together like theirs? Had luck and fate taken the stars and strands of time in equal measure and woven them together, side by side, hand in hand? 

He found himself musing over such thoughts just before sleep took him each night. Along with which the question of what he had done to deserve such happiness in return.


End file.
